


apology fics for my shenanigans

by KoriLovesIt



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27206632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoriLovesIt/pseuds/KoriLovesIt
Summary: essentially, what the title says.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	apology fics for my shenanigans

**Author's Note:**

> For: Aly
> 
> Reason: Ianthexangst in griddlehark chat

At the end of it all she finds herself back in those waters.

Canaan House lies in shambles around them, crumbling pillars and decimated walls the perfect painting of the end. This room survives though.

The pool is cold, and her clothes soak up the salt water like a dehydrated man too dumb to realise the salt will kill him. It's an odd feeling, floating like this. Almost weightless but not quite.

She can sort of feel Harrow's slow, soft breathing, close as they are, and knows that if she turns her head she'd find her necromancer's soft jawline, a punctured ear void of bones, and a mop of black hair that hasn't been this long since she was thirteen and Harrow was twelve.

"Weird to be back here."

Harrow exhales audibly. "Is it?"

"Yeah." Gideon jerks her head in a half-nod. "I mean, this is where I died you-"

"But you didn't. You're fine. You're alive. You're here."

Gideon turns her head and her eyes trace the clench of Harrow's jaw. "Only thanks to you my Empress of Doom and Gloom."

"Don't thank me. You could thank me if it was a choice, but it wasn't."

Gideon closes her eyes, let's the water lap at her earlobes. "You could have remembered me."

"Forgetting you is the only good choice I have ever made."

Gideon makes a noise, somewhere high in her throat.

Her head slowly pushes under, and the water cascades in twin waterfalls when she lifts it again. 

"You called Ianthe beautiful."

"And you keep you're attraction to the other Princess of Ida no secret. They're twins." 

"Yeah, but only one of them looks like she's had the pigment leached out of her."

Harrow doesn't say anything. 

"She's like a cockroach. Only things to survive the Resurrection."

Harrow hums. "Perhaps."

It's hard to be here. To be here with memories swimming alongside, and talk about Ianthe Tridentarius of all people.

"Why are we here, Nonagesimus?"

She turns her head and Harrow is already looking back at her. Her irises are Gideon's honey gold, but they're set in Harrow's eyes, half-hidden by Harrow's eyelashes, forlorn under Harrow's arching eyebrows. They suit her better, like they were always supposed to be hers. 

"You grabbed my hand and now we're lying in salt water. What secrets have you possibly got left."

Harrow looks away for a second, but her eyes keep flickering and Gideon knows she's thinking. 

"Just one more, Nav. One I perhaps shouldn't have waited this long to tell."

She ducks briefly and emerges upright, and Gideon scrambles to do the same. 

They're wet and cold and barely a breath apart. 

"Saving you wasn't a choice." Harrow begins, head bowed and only the soaking strands on her head visible from Gideon's height. "Forgetting you was agony. Remembering you again was worse. 

"And now we have survived a war. There is nothing left but this. Here. This which has been for longer than I can say I know."

Gideon's heart lurches, but surely not? The absurdity was too great, it couldn't be possible. 

"Harrow-" 

And suddenly her necromancer is looking up, eyes wide and alive and burning. 

"For once in your life don't play dumb, Griddle. You know. You know." 

She wades closer, as though it was possible, and Gideon doesn't know how to believe it. 

"I'm tired, Griddle. I'm so tired." 

Gideon nods and understands but doesn't. Doesn't need to. "Okay."

She reaches out with calloused palms to grasp that weathered face, tears and water cold against her cold hands, and presses redamancy salt to her lyctor's lips. 

"Me too."


End file.
